WHITEPAPER: Resilient Schools Project

Starr Commonwealth’s flagship Resilient Schools Project is an evidence-informed and comprehensive systems approach to establishing a culture of resilience and trauma-informed practices in K-12 school buildings and districts nationwide. The goal is to equip school professionals with knowledge, training, and support to foster resilience in children.

Starr’s theory of change is that when trauma-informed and resilience-focused adults work within trauma-informed and resilience-focused systems, the wellbeing and success of children will increase. This theory is the foundation of the Resilient Schools Project that includes not only training, but also practical tools, coaching, and evaluation measures to implement and sustain trauma-informed, resilience-focused care in education settings.

Since 2018, these efforts have been amassing data and proof points for the efficacy of the model. Starr now stands in a position to celebrate these projects in the form of a newly-published whitepaper. Through Starr’s Resilient Schools Project efforts with partnering schools, the Resilient Schools Project whitepaper documents the many gains that meet the immediate needs of children.

“Starr has always kept a keen eye on data as part of the Resilient Schools Project process,” explains Dr. Stacey Levin, Starr’s director of research and evaluation. “While this data is something we’re sure to capture for each individual school engaging in the Resilient Schools Project, we are now able to report on the emerging data trends across various schools. This whitepaper highlights just that, and we are thrilled to share the powerful impact participating schools are having on the lives of the students they serve.”

In a year-to-year comparison of this elementary school, the *number of referrals and suspensions decreased since implementing the Resilient Schools Project.

Since RSP implementation, staff self-efficacy has improved.

I feel able to do my best each day to help my students.

“Many of the students who are living with trauma have started to become more aware of [their] academic needs and are able to talk when [having] difficulty with their academics.”

– Elementary School Staff

“Students are growing in their resilience academically and have improved in their frustration tolerance in regards to their academics.”

– Elementary School Staff

“It brings practical applications of how we can come into the classroom setting and have this curiosity – this focus on relationships [and] help build resiliency while still teaching students our content.”

– Middle School Teacher

Since RSP implementation, staff have an increased understanding of how to be trauma responsive.

“I encourage my students to self-regulate after co-regulation. I try to teach them about the brain and different brain-aligned strategies that will help them in their other classes.”

– High School Staff

“It doesn’t matter what you teach, it doesn’t matter what students you teach, it doesn’t matter what grade level you teach – everybody can come away…with some strategies that they can use with students that they see every day in their classrooms.”

– School Administrator

“I feel supported and feel empowered to help children and families change for the better.”

– Elementary School Staff